A Monster Called Love
by KaceyHunter
Summary: I was selfish, I was hurtful. I tortured the ones I love- OneShot drabble, why Bella believes she's the real monster in her relationships with Edward and Jacob. Set during Eclipse.


_I was selfish, I was hurtful. I tortured the ones I love._

Never in a million years did I ever think I would become the person I have become. Looking at myself in the mirror all I see staring back is the deceit I have become. The worst kind of deceit it is that stares back at me, the deceit of myself. It's myself I'm tearing apart with my indecisiveness, stubbornness and inability to admit to myself what is right under my nose.

I was never the type of girl who dreamed of fairytales who thought she'd get her fairytale ending, I'd seen the fairytale disintegrate with Renee and Charlie and it had tainted my view on relationships. That all consuming and unconditional love that was played out in books and in movies seemed to distant to every truly exist happily alongside the trials and tribulations of everyday life. That was until Edward Cullen entered my life. Then I had no choice but to believe in fairytales, well myths to be more precise because suddenly I was in one of them. All of a sudden I had a Prince Charming rushing into save me, pick me up everytime I fell, literally in my case, and that giddy rush of love hit me like a tidal wave. I knew that there was nothing I wouldn't do for him, my own life would be a small price to pay for the protection of his, and I knew in him I had found the other part of me that I hadn't even known that I'd been missing within myself. With him by my side I could breathe properly, for the first time in my life I was whole, consumed by the love that he gave to me.

Then he left. He left to save me, save me from him, the dangers his constant presence around me presented to us all. But at that moment I didn't care, I didn't care if the next time he was next to me he killed me, I needed him there. I needed him more than I needed the air to breathe yet still he walked away claiming the past few months to be nothing more than a distraction from immortality. Each step he took away from me broke yet another piece of my heart until there was nothing left to break. Just shattered pieces left within me, rattling around with every memory. Pain and numbness washed over me for the next few months, I went through the motions to placate Charlie, each motion was a huge effort on my behalf. I wanted nothing more than to curl up into a ball on my bed and mourn, mourn the loss of the live I had chosen with the man I had chosen to be with which had been ripped from my destiny. I wanted to relive every moment of those 6 months, even the bad memories, as long as they contained Edward's face I wanted them in my head. Just to see his face, hear his voice, anything to preserve him in my mind, so scared that it had just been a dream, that it was nothing more than some vivid fairytale I had dreamt up to pass the time in Forks. He had to be real, this much pain couldn't come from a fairytale, fairytales had happy endings after all.

I was still hurting, aching inside when Jacob entered my life. Slowly, over time some of the holes inside of me began to close up with each smile Jacob put on my face, he became the person I needed to fix me from the pain Edward had left me in. I became to rely on him more than anyone else now that Edward was gone from my life, he would never be Edward but he was a close second in my heart. Not in the same Edward had been, but as a friend, a brother almost. Looking back now I wanted to kick myself for my naivety, the clues were there all along, Jacob's feelings were evident, I just chose to ignore them, too consumed by grief to even consider the possibility of reopening my heart. But consciously Jacob was already in my heart, it would just take me too long to realise that over time my heart had become split into two, Edward would always have the bigger half of me heart, but there was always a part of me that would belong to Jacob. It had to, if it wasn't for him I may not be standing here now, I owed him my life and my sanity, loving him had never been a part of the equation.

When Edward returned to Forks I was naïve enough to think that him and Jacob could accept that each of them were a part of my life, a part I could not live without. I needed each of them in my life, both for different reasons. Edward was my air, my addiction, I needed him more than I needed anything else in my life, he was me and I was him, two parts of a whole. But Jacob was the sun in my life, the only person who had reached out and touched me in a period of utter blackness, who had put a smile on my face when I thought it impossible. I needed them both now to be whole, and selfishly I believed I could have them both. It took me too long to realise that these two parts of my heart could never co-exist peacefully, like two magnets they were genetically programmed to repel one another, and I could not force them together.

I know now that due to my naivety and stubbornness to see the truth I caused us all unrivalled pain, I was more of a monster than either of them would ever be despite their nature. I was the worst kind of monster, I hurt people, and worst of all, I hurt the people I loved the most. Edward, ever patient, allowed me to continue to see Jacob, even though he could see what I refused to allow myself to see, that I was never just a friend to Jacob, he still let me go. He deserved better than that, he deserved better than me, I had never been more sure of that than now. He deserved someone who's soul was as pure as his, who's insides weren't ripped in two, tearing them two different ways, two different destinies. He deserved the kind of person he thought I was, not the person I was. But I knew I could never let him go, I was too selfish to lose him again, so steadfastly I clung to him, too scared of the darkness I would inevitably find myself in if he chose to find the love he truly deserved.

Jacob was never the gentleman that Edward was, his disdain for Edward and the Cullen's was transparently obvious, he didn't understand that I needed them both in my life to be whole. Confused as to how I could let Edward back in my life after all the pain and suffering he had caused me, I tried to explain. Explain that he had been saving me by leaving me, never meaning to hurt me. To Jacob it was simple, he had left me once and he would do it again, he made it clear time and time again that he would be waiting in the wings, ready to take Edward's place. He made it all sound so easy, if life was free of magic and myth than maybe Jacob would have been my natural path. It made the most sense logically, and nothing would have made Charlie happier than to see me make a life with the son of one of his best friends. But life had decided not to be kind to me and Jake, my path had changed, but it seemed Jacobs was still on the same track. It took me too long to realise that I was not the sister to Jacob that I imagined myself to be, that his feelings ran deeper than I could have imagined. I hurt him irrevocably by going back to Edward, I saw it on his face everytime Edward's name was mentioned, everytime my future was mentioned. By unintentionally stringing him along for so long I had given him false hopes, and in seconds had torn them all apart, mangling him worse than any enemy attack could do.

Time and time again I had hurt the people I loved. Edward and Jacob were too completely opposite yet completely necessary parts of my life. I didn't care about the hurt that I was causing them as long as I had them in my life, I was selfish like that. I'd lost each of them enough to know I couldn't survive without them, I monopolized them to get what I wanted, was prepared to let other people get hurt just so that they'd still be there. They'd always be there for me, no matter how much I hurt them and the damage I caused, and the worst part of that? I was prepared to let them, because I was the worst monster of all, love.


End file.
